Melissa Castan is a Professor at the Monash Law Faculty and the Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law. Her family were ‘new Australians’, refugees from persecution in Eastern Europe who came to Australia seeking safety and the opportunity to build new lives in what they were told was a ‘new nation’. She is a legal academic working in the realm of human rights, public and constitutional law, with a focus on opportunities for the recognition and implementation of proper legal relations with First Nations people. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and is committed to the advancement of social justice through law reform and legal education in Australia.